


A Pirate's Life

by NothingImpossibleOnlyImprobable



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Drabbles, F/M, Fluff, Random - Freeform, and everything in between, collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 23:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6587500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NothingImpossibleOnlyImprobable/pseuds/NothingImpossibleOnlyImprobable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AsheBones collection, because apparently I've jumped on this ship just as it set sail and I'm in it for the ride.  Prompts and drabbles for Abigail and Billy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Leather Bracelets, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from lenfaz for leather bracelets.

He fingered the leather wrapped around his wrist, something he’d worn for years without noticing.  All was quiet on deck, but he couldn’t bring himself to rest.  

The straps crisscrossed over each other, weaving a delicate, almost braided, pattern.  A few shells he’d picked up over time were threaded through here and there, but he paid them no mind.  His fingers blindly sought out the indented letters carved on the inside of his left wrist.  

AA.

She’d insisted on leaving her mark before disembarking the ship, probably never to see each other again.

“So you’ll remember my name,” she had whispered in the dark, tiny blade scraping the rough leather, her fingers, grasping his arm, holding him steady.  “For I will surely remember you, Billy.”

She was gone now, chased from the mess formerly known as Charles Town to far off Savannah.  

He wondered - no, hoped - she’d find her way back to Nassau, but knew it was a childish dream, a fantasy he couldn’t afford.  But still… maybe…

He leaned back against the bulkhead, fingers tracing the letters over and over.

“Abigail,” he whispered in the dark.

No one heard.


	2. Leather Bracelets, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from lenfaz for leather bracelets, part 2.

She fingers the leather wrapped around his wrist, the bracelet she’d noticed the moment she saw him that first time, so long ago.  It’s worn now, old and slightly faded in places, the shells barely holding on to the thin strips threaded through them, but she pays them no mind.  Her fingers blindly seek the letters carved on the inside of his left wrist.

AA.

She’d insisted on leaving her mark, all those years ago, hoping he would remember her, hoping she’d managed to leave a memory of herself with him before she left.

She traces the letters in the dark as he sleeps, his arm draped across her shoulders, their skin pressed tightly together despite the heat of the night.  She hears the crickets outside, the soft sighs of the toddler asleep in his small bed across the room, but loudest of all is the throbbing heartbeat under her ear.

She smiles.  It was worth it, all those months apart, only to be reunited once more on the shores they now call home.  It was worth it, trekking through miles of harsh mangrove-tangled swamp back to him.  It was worth it, the sea voyage, rougher than she remembered, as she saw only his face in her mind throughout.

It was all worth it.

He sighs softly, shifting beneath her, and his eyes open to peek at her.

“Sleep, Abigail,” he says quietly, careful not to wake the little one who only finally fell asleep but a few hours ago.  His deep voice rumbles through his chest into her very heart.  “You need your rest.”  He reaches his hand across to her, caressing her cheek gently with his calloused fingers, roughened from so many years at sea.

She nods against his skin.  “I will, Billy,” she murmurs, her fingers still rubbing the worn leather around his arm.  “I was just thinking.”

“Oh?” he asks, his voice still low.  “Anything I should know about?”

She smiles again.  “Nothing really.  I’m just…. Happy.”

He slides closer in the dark and presses a kiss into her hair.  “As am I, Abi,” he whispers against her forehead.  “Now please, get some sleep.  For the baby, if not for yourself.”  He slides his hand from her cheek to her belly, swollen and rounded against him, and he rubs gentle circles on her stretched skin.

“Aye aye, Quartermaster Bones,” she says with a grin.

With his hand on her stomach, hers still tracing lazily at her former initials carved into his bracelet, they swiftly drift off to sleep.


	3. Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from hiddencait for storm.

“I can’t do this anymore, Billy!” she cried, tossing the towel to the floor.  “I can’t pretend that everything is fine each time you set sail, that I don’t worry that you’re not going to come home to me again!”

“You think I _want_ to go out and leave you here alone?” he answered, feeling his voice starting to rise, but trying desperately to control it.  It would do neither of them any good to dissolve into a screaming match, especially now that the little was one was finally asleep for the night.

“Then why do you keep going?” she asked, her eyes stormy with emotion, her face streaked with tears, though she tried to wipe them away as fast as possible.  “Why do you keep following him?”

“It’s my job, Abigail.  I have to go.”

She spun away, turning toward the dough she had been in the middle of keading into loaves for tomorrow.  “Then go,” she said, sounding defeated.  “Just go.”

“Abigail, please don’t do this,” he said, stepping toward her, reaching for her.  “I love you, and I will always come back for you.”

She flinched away from his touch, and he felt his heart breaking in a way he never thought could come from the woman he loved with all his heart.  She didn’t look at him as she spoke, her words sharp despite the usual softness of her voice.  “You’d best keep that promise, Billy Bones.  Your boy needs you, he needs his father.”

“Abigail, look at me,” Billy murmured softly.  “Please.”

She sighed noisily, resting her hands on the sides of the bowl as she finally, finally, lifted her head to see him.  All his life at sea had taught him _nothing_ about dealing with storms of the heart, her eyes clouded and dark and yet at the same time clearly showing everything she felt, a whirlwind of so much emotion swirling into a terrifying vortex.  He could see the hurt, he saw her fear, for him, for their family, for their future, but he also saw her love, steady and strong and deep as the ocean currents he followed each time back to her.  He reached for her hands again, ignoring the flour that coated them, the flour that dusted across his own fingers as he held her hands tightly.

“I promise you, Abigail Manderly, that I will return for you, no matter what sort of hell I have to cross to get back here.”  He looked into her eyes a moment longer before adding.  “This is my home, with you, right here.  This is where I want to be, even when I’m out there.  I love you.”

He almost didn’t catch her as she threw herself forward into his arms, but he managed to hold her tightly, almost as strong as she held onto him.

“Just come home to me,” she whispered into his chest.  “That’s all I ask.”

“I will, I swear I will.”


End file.
